There’s been – yet another – blow up about trolling on Twitter but the context provided by the UK porn filter discussion makes this a slightly different debate.
It is my bitter experience that while I hate to condescend to people, assuming too much reading comprehension skill on the part of the internet as a whole is to invite misinterpretation and problems further down the line. So if this post comes across as a little patronising it’s not because I intend to be, it’s because I don’t want to be misunderstood.
Let’s get a few things said up front to provide some context:
Misogyny is bad
The word gets overused a bit, but in its original meaning ‘irrational hatred of women’ yes, it’s absolutely a terrible thing. Anyone promoting or engaging in misogyny deserves little or no sympathy and like any other irrational prejudice or hatred it’s unacceptable. I am against misogyny and everyone should be in my humble opinion.
Trolling is bad
Like misogyny, the term ‘trolling’ gets overused to include anyone who vehemently and passionately disagrees or gets into a heated argument. Still, genuine trolling does still exist and it is destructive, problematic for debates and more and more of a problem because people don’t seem to understand that they’re being trolled.
As defined in: “Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication,” by University of Central Lancashire lecturer Claire Hardaker, a Troll is:
…an individual “who constructs the identity of sincerely wishing to be part of the group in question, including professing or conveying pseudo-sincere intentions, but whose real intention(s) is/are to cause disruption and/or to trigger or exacerbate conflict for the purposes of their own amusement.”
How do you deal with it?:
“Trolling can (1) be frustrated if users correctly interpret an intent to troll, but are not provoked into responding, (2) be thwarted if users correctly interpret an intent to troll, but counter in such a way as to curtail or neutralise the success of the troller, (3) fail if users do not correctly interpret an intent to troll and are not provoked by the troller, or, (4) succeed if users are deceived into believing the troller’s pseudo-intention(s), and are provoked into responding sincerely. Finally, users can mock troll. That is, they may undertake what appears to be trolling with the aim of enhancing or increasing effect, or group cohesion.”
Women bloggers, columnists, article writers etc who keep bringing up the trolling they get as a serious issue are giving the trolls what they want by virtue of ‘4’.
Again, nobody – I know of – is arguing that trolling it a good thing.
Let’s also be clear that this isn’t a uniquely female problem. Express a political, social, religious or even an artistic/critical opinion and you’re likely to attract trolling. The major difference seems to only be that – for some reason – women take it more seriously than men.
Trying to control the internet is also bad
Internet sites that allow users to post their own content – such as Twitter – are more akin to paper manufacturers than they are to TV channels. Given the sheer amount of content and the problems with automated processes expecting Twitter or Facebook or even a website host to control or monitor the content ‘written on their paper’ is a mug’s game. It should not be their responsibility but rather the responsibility of the person using their ‘paper’. The ISP or host can help once abuse is correctly identified but doing this is frustratingly slow – so long as we provide decent protection against false reporting.
Kafkatraps & False Dilemmas
Whether it’s the proposed porn filter or asking Twitter to police ‘harassment’ this is presented as a kafkatrap. Any response at all is interpreted in the worst possible way and as support for the proposed stricture.
- Oppose the porn filter? You must be a creepy paedophile or an abuser.
- Oppose pointless efforts to control or censor Twitter? You must be a misogynist.
It’s an emotional appeal on an emotional issue from an emotional reaction.
It is perfectly possible to both oppose child porn, or abusive harassment and to oppose proposed tools or controls to deal with it.
The cost of control & abuse of control systems
The internet routes around censorship and control as though it were damage. Like DRM or the porn filter trying to control abuse/harassment/trolling will have virtually no effect on the trolls and will have a big effect on normal users. Indeed trolls are likely to use and abuse any such system to silence people themselves.
This already happens.
As part of the #atheist community on Twitter I regularly see people who are merely strident or effective debaters getting their accounts suspended due to organised abuse of the spam report button that already exists. The process seems to be somewhat automated (volume of communication is too big to expect people to go over it all). Enough spam reports and your account is suspended. It takes some time to get it back. As a case in point I present @RosaRubicondior, an active Twitter atheist currently knocked offline due to abuse of the report system by a Catholic apologist with multiple accounts. There are even whole groups that coordinate spam reports to knock people offline.
Adding an abuse button – as is being proposed – will just provide another means for legitimate users to get knocked offline and it’s likely to be used against the very people asking for these controls and tools.
Will it stop a determined troll?
No. They’ll make multiple accounts, they’ll use proxies etc to get past any protections that are put down. To be even moderately effective any tool will have to identify the user (which presents its own problems). Remove anonymity and you don’t particularly stop a determined troll. Anonymity has a cost in terms of cyberbullies but it also has a big positive side that lessening anonymity would hurt:
- Political dissidents use twitter and other online media because of their anonymity.
- Homosexuals – still criminalised in many countries – are able to get a sense of community and support only because of anonymity.
- Battered spouses and victims of real life abuse can seek help through anonymity and safety.
That’s a tiny few examples of many. You threaten to destroy that by changing things.
You already have options
‘Don’t feed the trolls’ is getting a bad rap for some reason, but it remains the best way to deal with it. The payoff for a troll is getting a big reaction a twitterstorm, newspaper articles, people wringing their hands and even making blog posts like this!
We play into their hands by doing so. Block the person, ignore them and they get no payoff from you.
I don’t see any other way to deal with it that doesn’t have a massive cost in terms of free expression, abuse of the system and loss of the upside of anonymity. We don’t seem to be able to change the trolls so we need to change ourselves (or at least some of us do).
- Block ’em.
- Don’t take ’em seriously – after all, how many online ‘threats’ actually come to fruition?
- Understand what trolling is and change your reaction to it.
1. Almost every social media platform has a block function. Even outside of social media there are plugins for browsers that will block forum trolls and even cut off whole websites. You can set your email spam filters too and most newspaper and other, similar hosts are much more heavily moderated.
2. Come on. Really. How many internet threats go flying around every day? I’ve been trolled, harassed and threatened by a combination of trolls, true believers, social justice warriors and militant Islamists. I’ve been threatened with burning, stabbing, beheading, ruination, maiming etc etc. Here I still am. Why should I take these threats seriously and why should you? Why do you? The only people that have come close to following through are the supposed progressives!
3. A troll is a parasite who gets an emotional high (and a salve to their boredom) from provoking you and making you react. If your reaction is to take them seriously and demand changes and censorship you’re doing what they want. ‘Ur doin it rong’. You simply cannot control or stop trolling in a way that allows us to preserve the upsides of the internet. The only thing you can change is your reaction. I think it’s somewhat telling that men don’t seem to react in the same way. Perhaps due to a culture of ‘joshing’ and ‘friendly insults’. This does seem a healthier way to react though.
These kinds of kneejerk reactions to what absolutely is reprehensible behaviour threaten to cause more harm, not less.
Take a breath, think about it as a whole.
Grim's Tales 
I agree with your sentiment in general, but disagree on anonymity. Demanding that people stand behind their statements with their real identity can be a very effective counter to trolling and result in far more civil discussion. Even where anonymity is allowed, treating it like a privilege that can be removed if abused can cut trolling.
I can see the value of anonymity for boards that discuss very sensitive issues, or where people have a reasonable expectation that posting could result in unfair persecution, and the examples you list, but these situations are not the norm, and can be dealt with on a case by case basis, specific to the boards that handle these issues.
I see this in discussion groups on facebook or google+, where using your identity is the norm and pseudonyms are the (rulebreaking) exception. Discussion is generally more civil than elsewhere, and the repercussions for using your identity are, for the most part, non-existant.
“Don’t feed the trolls” while good advice, has been good advice for the length of the history of the internet and has done little or nothing to reduce trolling.
I agree with everything you’re saying, but it’s important to note that Hardaker’s article is three years old, and her definition of the term was a little quaint even then. Most people are not talking about pseudo group members causing disruption through mock belief any more. They’re talking about random abuse. The use of the term ‘troll’ here is unfortunate, but language moves on, and we are dragged with it.
Yeah, I may post a follow up later. Twitter isn’t the best for getting across nuance and I want something with more permanence than a Twitlonger.
That ‘Troll’ definition is a good one.
But today’s army of shit-flinging abuse-generators aren’t Trolls, they’re od-school Flamers. No subtlety, no finesse, just Herp-Derp-Derp all day long.
Blocking/ignoring is even more important there.
Additionally, if someone has, indeed, said something actionable (libellous, genuinely malicious, etc) and law enforcement gets involved, that’s a matter for the Law (and wether the Law is an ass or not) not the medium
Yep. I’ll do a follow up to this later to make some of this more clear.
Women just seem more inherently upset by it? In the vast number of articles I have read by women speaking out about their ‘trolls’ it is far more than your standard sideshow.
Saying mean things is a troll’s bread and butter, playing devil’s advocate with sanctimonious disregard is eye-rolling but predictable.
This little cartoon may as well have been written about me: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
For, though I pledge to change my ways, I always end up on countless debates on the Internet. I try not to feed those trolls, but dammit, sometimes they say just the right thing, or they don’t reveal their troll nature until the discussion is already under-way and I belatedly realise I got troll-bombed.
This always leaves me cursing myself and wondering why I decided to scroll to something like the comments section of youtube in the first place. No good can come of it.
But, in the cases of many women I have heard speak out, we are not talking about some nasty little sprites with a little too much time, we are talking about people filled with such hate and vitriol that it takes you aback.
In the topic of feminism you can look at Anita Sarkeesian, who wanted to do a web series on tropes of women in gaming. Nothing harmful, just a little kickstarter to see if someone is interested, chances are that if the notion makes you want to gag then you are not the intended audience.
A little trolling is expected, and given that it was talking about ‘gaming’ even more trolling than usual.
But it goes past that when you have a calculated and vicious onslaught, dos attacks, attempts to hack your accounts, services, emails filled with pictures of you being raped, direct threats to rape, kill, abuse, slap, harm you, harm those close to you, attempts to find your phone number, your address, to find any and all information that could/would humiliate you. Anything to take you down and to silence what you have to say.
Threats of violence and sexual assault are real life crimes, the Internet is not the magic bubble people once thought it was, nor should it be.
I love my anonymity, but it isn’t everything.
Don’t feed the trolls CAN work, sure. But it is a fallacy to expect people to do so when there is a bigger picture. Similar to my teacher’s telling me to ignore my bullies in highschool. I can assure you I tried that track and it resulted in more focused and determined efforts to hurt me. The nastiness that resides in some people cannot and will not be ignored.
In some cases these attacks can be genuinely frightening, the kind of thing that doesn’t scare women, but all people. Someone who hates you having access to your private details is not ideal in anyone’s.
Don’t feed the trolls/ignore your bullies can in some cases be valid, but not always. Sometimes ignoring these bullies or trolls is giving them license to do whatever they want to do, unchecked
The Internet is a different playing field, but we’re still playing the same game. The same rules apply and sometimes people deserve to be caught out on them.
The law vs the Internet is still young and it is hit and miss, sometimes when it misses it really is foul (19 year old locked up on 500k bail due to his sarcastic comments in regards to League Of Legends on Facebook, for example).
But I’m not willing to dismiss the entire effort and there are some great intentions out there. I myself and too many women I know personally have suffered a level of attack that goes beyond what all of MY personal male friends have experienced (mine within a certain very well known MMO).
A woman’s fear of rape is . . .ingrained, from an early age. It can be difficult to explain to men, not because men (the men I know) don’t care, but simply because we all know that putting yourself in the shoes of another is a very difficult thing.
Threats of rape are ones we are trained to take seriously, not by some overzealous crazy women or ‘radfems’ but by our fathers and our brothers and very often the people close to us with only our best interests at heart.
From early age we are told to be alert, never be alone with a strange man, watch what you wear, never go out alone, never accept a drink from a stranger or ever EVER leave your drink unattended, try to be careful of what your body language can apparently tell people without your words agreeing to them.
The lessons are taught to us for a reason, not to convince us that the world is an awful place we should be afraid of, but because bad things happen and the only way people to help is to load you with information and then hope you don’t become a statistic.
Not to imply that men are never victims, they are, and it is equally horrifying and reprehensible. So much as most/all men I know personally do not find inherent fear in the threat of being raped. To them it is so laughable and impossible to take seriously, they aren’t silly or uneducated, but because their lives have not given them a reason to take it seriously.
I hope I’m not overloading you with a lot of “blah”, or that I have given you the impression that I think you are a sneaky rapist in disguise or something.
If I thought you were lacking in any sort of reason I wouldn’t have hit you with a wall of text (crit hit?). I do appreciate your opinions, especially that in regards to how anonymity can help people find a sense of safety that they would not normally be afforded and genuinely require.
I would just like to hope there is a place where we can get to that allows people to be protected but does not allow people to harass other people in such a threatening manner.
I have to finish up some work and go out but this deserves a proper reply when I return.
Anita Sarkeesian is not the best example to use given her blatant manipulation of trolls to push her own agenda. Especially since she has a reputation as a bit of a con artist and making misleading videos etc…
Consider instead the fact that a number of adult game sites or those with ‘furry’ content were recently (within the last week) subject to dos style attacks with no publicity at all…
Looking at this example, along with many others, it seems to an outside observer to be massive overreactions to obvious trolling.
http://iwillnotputupwiththis.blogspot.mx/ documents the ‘abuse’ in this instance and while the newer stuff is more vicious and worrying that’s because of escalation. The earlier stuff that’s supposedly threats and abuse is unpleasant but is so obviously spurious trolling and wind-up practice that it’s flabberghasting that anyone would take it remotely seriously.
I keep ending up in debates like this myself and being painted by the supposedly progressive people on the other side as all sorts of horrible things. That’s always been far more upsetting than trolling because they seem to genuinely believe it.
I keep hearing that this is somehow different but then I see the examples above, compare them to my own experience and wonder what the fuss is about. Have these people never been on the internet before? Why do they keep playing into the troll’s hands by getting ‘butthurt’ and going on national media. That’s just giving the trolls what they want.
Sarkeesian is a bad example. She’s taken a lot of money that she’s done virtually bugger-all with. She casts a lot of aspersions, insults a lot of people and feeds off and trades off the drama. Not unlike Rebecca Watson she’s made a career out of playing victim.
Sarkseesian has stifled debate and dissent using the excuse of trolling and threats, stifled debate, conflated dissenters and counter arguments with the trolls and used trolling to support her thesis of misogyny – which is disingenuous.
The bigger reactions in this case, as with Sarkeesian, seem to happen in response to stoking the fires and feeding the trolls or going to the level of threatening people by demanding change and censorship. That’s what pisses off the ‘real monsters’.
Whenever you speak out on anything you make yourself a target. You don’t have to be a woman. It doesn’t have to be feminism. It’s often worse for women and feminists because their hot buttons, the things that make them crazy, are obvious and easy to push but it’s by no means unique. They just seem to take it more seriously and part of me thinks they do so because it serves them to do so.
Bullies can and will actually get to you in real life. Trolls aren’t so much the same thing. Given Sarkeesian has supposedly had thousands of these threats and none of them have ever amounted to anything, why should they be taken seriously? Why are so many people incapable of understanding a threat is spurious?
Given that I can brush off threats of beheading by Islamists during atheism discussions (especially in the aftermath of Lee Rigby) why are some people seemingly incapable of doing the same with rape? Is it magic? Does it have special status that makes it more credible?
Doxing is a problem, but most people’s info is now available. What’s creepy is that the information is there, not that people are getting at it per se.
Unlike a physical bully, you can wipe an internet bully entirely out of your perception and that’s it. Over.
I don’t think your attacks go beyond those of others. It really seems more that women just take them more seriously. I am very curious as to why.
I understand women fear rape, but I also understand that it isn’t that common and of the attacks that do happen most are from people the woman knows. Not J Random Douchecanoe on the internet. It’s an irrational fear, just as the fear old people have of ‘hoodies’ is an irrational fear stirred up by media. The level of threat is vastly overestimated.
It’s not outside male experience. We’re capable of empathy and we’re also vastly more likely to be the victims of violence than women are. Where you fear schroedinger’s rapist we would fear Schroedinger’s spilled pint (leading to a fight). For whatever reason – despite the stats suggesting we should be – we’re not as paranoid of that as women are of rape.
If this is what’s feeding this reaction then it’s, frankly, not the rape jokes etc we need to address. It’s the phobia.
I just don’t think we can have the good without some of the bad and we put the good at HUGE risk by addressing the bad as a kneejerk reaction.
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If some A hole like that DOES decide to show up, he’s gonna be facing down a Ruger .357 short barrel with a mean old fart (me) who don’t take kindly to AHOLES who make THREATS. Come and get me! I F..ing dare ya!!